Minnesota Right to Repair Law

WMno57

https://pirg.org/articles/minnesota-passes-broadest-right-to-repair-measure-to-date/
Not the whole article, but here is the WMno57 condensed version:

When originally filed, the Minnesota legislation covered all electronic products except for cars and medical devices. As the bill moved forward, farm and construction equipment was also exempted, as were video game consoles and home energy storage systems.
The bill still covers everything else. For the first time, the Right to Repair extends to appliances, enterprise computing and commercial equipment (such as HVAC systems). In addition, the bill covers many of the products already included in New York’s first-in-the-nation consumer electronics Right to Repair bill.

ChrisJ

WMno57 said:

https://pirg.org/articles/minnesota-passes-broadest-right-to-repair-measure-to-date/

Not the whole article, but here is the WMno57 condensed version:

When originally filed, the Minnesota legislation covered all electronic products except for cars and medical devices. As the bill moved forward, farm and construction equipment was also exempted, as were video game consoles and home energy storage systems.

The bill still covers everything else. For the first time, the Right to Repair extends to appliances, enterprise computing and commercial equipment (such as HVAC systems). In addition, the bill covers many of the products already included in New York’s first-in-the-nation consumer electronics Right to Repair bill.

I love it.

EdTheHeaterMan

When was it ever Wrong to Repair?
Or, am I not reading this Right?

STEVEusaPA

EdTheHeaterMan said:

When was it ever Wrong to Repair?
Or, am I not reading this Right?

I read it twice. I still don't understand what it's supposed to do, and what was the problem before the legislation, other than someone saying they couldn't fix ventilators if needed, but don't explain why.
Maybe it's more of a right to have access to I/O manuals?

GGross

STEVEusaPA said:

EdTheHeaterMan said:

When was it ever Wrong to Repair?
Or, am I not reading this Right?

I read it twice. I still don't understand what it's supposed to do, and what was the problem before the legislation, other than someone saying they couldn't fix ventilators if needed, but don't explain why.
Maybe it's more of a right to have access to I/O manuals?

I know in other areas "right to repair" was more about products being able to be repaired (cell phones for example which are sometimes made to not allow repairs). I'm not aware of any place in the US where you aren't legally allowed to fix your own residential appliances etc.

Pumpguy

As I understand it, OEMs have been denying consumers and end users the "right to repair" their own stuff by refusing to sell and provide the tech support and needed parts.

RIGHT TO REPAIR laws make this practice illegal. I have had personal experience in this area with motorcycles and vacuum pumps.

KC_Jones

This has been a big issue in the farming industry from what I've read.

Imagine a farmer that isn't allowed to fix their tractor by the manufacturer?

ethicalpaul

Yes, farming has been a big part of this movement, and of course, the farm equipment manufacturers' lobbies successfully got their stuff exempted from this law.

Companies do stuff like "lock out" a failed part from the equipment's computer so that only an authorized repair facility can remove the lock, forcing consumers to utilize those (more expensive) repair options.

EdTheHeaterMan

General Electric did that in the 1940's and 1950's with the Down-fire boiler they sold. No one was allowed to work on them except for a GE authorized service provider. That was their downfall because there were no oil heat repair man that worked for the fuel dealers that could get the parts and knew how they worked. Eventually those old GE boilers and furnaces got. to be 20 years old and GE didn't want to work on them any more.

If GE let the oil dealers in on their secret recipe , they could have sold many more boilers because oil dealers would be installing the more efficient clean burning system, to combat the Gas Company who was stealing their oil customers.

PS. @STEVEusaPA, that was an attempt at humor. Sometimes you hit the mark, Sometimes you bomb

WMno57

The Minnesota law will go into effect on July 1, 2024, and apply to anything produced after July 1, 2021.

Energy Kinetics may have to make their parts available to Minnesota Homeowners. Either sell parts direct to EK boiler OWNERS, or through a retailer like www.supplyhouse.com. If EK does not comply, they may get a court date with the Minnesota Attorney General.

In this discussion, @ColdMainer is having a problem with water delivery from his well in his home.
https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/194883/my-pressure-tank-to-the-well-is-filling-very-slowly
The problem may be due to a sludged up radon water aeration system. The manual for ColdMainer's RadonAway Clearadon specifically says it must be serviced every 6 months. The manual identifies parts that must be changed every six months and every 5 years. Radonaway does not make the manual available on their website (didn't stop me from getting one). They do not sell their parts (consumable or otherwise) to the OWNERS of their equipment. You have to go through one of their dealer - installers.
https://www.radonaway.com/new-radonaway-cust

RadonAway DOES NOT sell direct to homeowners. If you are a homeowner and need assistance with a radon system, you should contact the professional that installed your system. If you need assistance locating a certified radon mitigation system installer or radon mitigator in your area, click here and complete this form and we will provide you with references in your area.

from the RadonAway manual (which is NOT available on their website):

MAINTENANCE
The Clearadon® Series 3311 has been carefully designed and constructed. In order to ensure
years of trouble-­‐free operation, the following maintenance procedures must be followed. There
are no user-­‐ serviceable parts, so these maintenance procedures must be carried out by a
licensed plumber or water treatment specialist

WMno57

ethicalpaul said:

Yes, farming has been a big part of this movement, and of course, the farm equipment manufacturers' lobbies successfully got their stuff exempted from this law.

Deere was able to lobby their way out of the MN law. Didn't work out so well for them in Colorado.

mattmia2

WMno57 said:

RadonAway DOES NOT sell direct to homeowners. If you are a homeowner and need assistance with a radon system, you should contact the professional that installed your system. If you need assistance locating a certified radon mitigation system installer or radon mitigator in your area, click here and complete this form and we will provide you with references in your area.

That sounds more like that they only sell to distributors and everyone has to buy from a distributor.

WMno57

Right to Repair legislation has passed in Massachusetts (in 2012 and 2020), Colorado (2022 and 2023), New York and Minnesota.

So far in 2023, 30 states have introduced legislation.
AK – SB 112 – covers everything but cars.
CA – SB 244 – covers consumer devices, and SB 271 which covers powered wheelchairs. Both have passed the Senate, and await action in the Assembly.
CO – HB1011 – covers farm equipment and has been signed into law.
CT – HB 5755 / HB 6083 – which cover powered wheelchairs, and of which 6083 has pass its first committee, and H.B. 6512 which covers consumer electronics.
DE – HB41 – covers everything except cars, has cleared committee.
FL – HB 533 / SB 422 – which cover farm equipment, of which the Senate bill passed through committee.
GA – SB 243 – covers all products.
HI – HB53 / HB 1287 – cover all products except cars, SB 1172 – covers medical devices; SB 1105 and HB 645 – covers all products except heavy equipment and medical devices $100,000.
IA – HF 587 – covers all products.
IL – HB 3602 – covers powered wheelchairs, HB 3593 – covers all products except medical devices and cars, and HB 3601 – covers laptops and tablets used by school districts.
MA – H 360 / S 142 – covers mobile devices.
ME – SB 1487 – covers everything but cars.
MD – HB 712 – covers farm equipment, was withdrawn. HB 1193 – requires access to repair data from cars.
MI – HB 4562 – covers all electronic devices except cars and 6 similar measures HB 4609, HB 4673, SB 342, HB 4651, SB 341, and HB 4650, which cover farm equipment.
MO – SB 554 / HB 217 – cover everything but cars, of which the Senate bill passed committee, HB 698 – covers farm equipment.
MN – HF 1337 – covers everything but cars and medical devices, SF 1598 overs everything but cars, medical devices ag and heavy equipment. Both were combined into omnibus legislation which was signed into law.
MT – HB 475 / SB 347 – cover farm equipment, HB 195 – covers powered wheelchairs.
NC – H752 – covers medical devices.
NH – HB73 – covers home appliances.
NJ – AB 1538 – covers everything but cars, AB 3612 – covers farm equipment and lawn mowers.
OH – SB 273 – covers everything except cars, farm and forestry equipment and medical equipment.
OK – SB869 – covers consumer devices.
OR – SB542 / HB3631 – cover personal electronics / consumer devices. The senate bill has passed the relevant committee.
PA – SB744 – covers all devices except cars, medical devices, and outdoor power, farming, yard and construction equipment.
SD – SB 194 covers all but medical, excluded cars.
TN – SB0077 – covers powered wheelchairs.
TX – HB 515 / SB 1654 cover farm and heavy equipment, HB 1606 – covers everything but cars.
WA – SB5464 / HB1392 – cover laptops, tablets and cell phones. Passed House.
WV – HB 3384 . SB 738 – cover farm equipment, passed the Senate.
VT – H. 81 – covers farm equipment and has passed the full House, and H. 79 / S. 46 – covers all equipment but cars and medical devices.

source
https://pirg.org/campaigns/right-to-repair/

EBEBRATT-Ed

This will be a tough fight especially with the "new technology". Manufacturers may be reluctant due to liability issues. But how do you deny that the owner of equipment he or she bought and paid for cannot have access to repair parts and manuals?

Illinoisfarmer

Agriculture has definitely been a driving force behind this. Deere actually signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation agreeing to open up their systems and make software available to 3rd party repair shops and vendors. We'll see if it happens, but there's probably a lot more at play here than meets the eye.

For the last 10 or 15 years, pretty much every piece of farm level equipment that Deere has sold has been equipped with an Agriculture Management System (AMS). More recently, the AMS systems have grown beyond simply keeping our GPS headings, planted varieties, yield etc. - and now manage and control every function of the machine. Every machine is also equipped with a modem that uploads all machine data to Deere. It's awesome in some ways. I can watch everything I own on Deere's Operations Center App. I can share my GPS Headings, machine locations - almost anything with other farmers. Tech support (from Deere) can watch my in cab display remotely and diagnose problems. Like I said, it's awesome in some ways.

Deere equipment that was stolen by the Russians during the Ukraine invasion was remotely shut down by Deere. They claimed they'd never used that function before, but it obviously exists. There's no way to shut the AMS system down or operate the machine without it in newer equipment. And everything - every function, every operator interaction, every piece of information - is uploaded. The data about every farming operation that uses the equipment is on Deere's servers. I'm not that bothered by the whole thing, however, during farmer conversations (usually a few beers in), it's been brought up that it seems very likely that during harvest, someone could aggregate all of our yield data fairly easily. I'd assume that information might be quite valuable to commodities traders, the government, etc.

I'm generally pretty conservative about what information is out there about me and my farm, but I'm not that worked up about all this. I've never thought Deere has abused the information that they gather from my equipment. At this point, no one, other than a Deere Dealer Tech can connect to the bus on my tractors, combine, planter etc. to make an adjustment or change. No one else has access to the software or hardware necessary.

If Deere is forced to open the system to 3rd parties, I guess it will probably be a good thing. I have no idea what changes that might bring. I know there are those that are really intense about wanting this change, I'm just not sure it matters that much to me!

ratio

Huh. Sounds like Skynet will actually evolve out of the Ag systems, and not military. Will that be better???

I'll be back...in time for harvest!

CLamb

Here is an interesting story about a Polish made train which was designed to fail if someone other than the manufacturer tried to repair it. I suspect this is the type of thing they are trying to legislate against. https://badcyber.com/dieselgate-but-for-trains-some-heavyweight-hardware-hacking/

EdTheHeaterMan

Just want to shout out to all those farmers! They are men and women that are outstanding in their fields

ChrisJ

EdTheHeaterMan said:

Just want to shout out to all those farmers! They are men and women that are outstanding in their fields

jumper

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

This will be a tough fight especially with the "new technology". Manufacturers may be reluctant due to liability issues. But how do you deny that the owner of equipment he or she bought and paid for cannot have access to repair parts and manuals?

Ford & Firestone were blamed for FordExplorers rolling over. Nobody identified any flaws in truck or tires.

ChrisJ

@jumper

Isn't that what caused all cars, SUVs etc to have tire pressure monitoring systems in them now?

From what I recall, the Explorer was prone to rolling over easier than others and recommended a very low tire pressure. The tires themselves were also prone to separating.

So there were flaws identified and the two products used together was a bad combination.

SlamDunk

We have several Deere Gators at work. My team of mechanics are so skilled, some of them wont think twice about buying a brand new truck, lift it, change gear ratios or hacking into the computer to boost performance. But when we went to Deere for a replacement parking brake, they said we have to haul the gator to them to be evaluated by one of their techs and repaired....

I bought a pair of chocks for it.

eclecticmn

Louis Rossman has a youtube channel that was mostly about repairing Apple computers, mostly MacBooks. He got very much into right to repair laws because Apple goes to great lengths to make sure no one but their techs can repairs their products, in order to boost profits. Often they refuse to repair older products to boost sales of newer products.

Apple has made it impossible to repair some products. E.g. put serial numbers in hard drives and memory so that if you replace one the computer cannot start. John Deere did things like that. The Onewheel electric skateboard makes it impossible to replace the battery as i recall. Auto companies want to make it impossible repair newer cars. He has gotten involved in lobbying some states. I recall Apple mostly put him out of business with their scheming.

https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/videos

John Deere issue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSAPY5mYm3E

ethicalpaul

Apple has been criticized for various things over the years, some deserved, some less so, but currently, their self-repair program is rather unparalleled.

They will send you the tools to borrow, and the parts, with detailed instructions and you can have at it:

https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair